


Shiver

by DemonzDust



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Theo Raeken, Dom Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Fluff and Angst, Good Alpha Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Good Theo Raeken, Hurt Theo Raeken, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Omega Theo Raeken, Post-Canon, Sceo Secret Santa, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In, Sub Theo Raeken, Suspense, Top Scott McCall (Teen Wolf)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonzDust/pseuds/DemonzDust
Summary: After a close brush with death on a mission, Scott is concerned that Theo’s wounds aren’t healing the way that they should be.
Relationships: Scott McCall/Theo Raeken
Comments: 11
Kudos: 84
Collections: Sceo Secret Santa 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xxxbuffyxxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxxbuffyxxx/gifts).



> This was written for panonbinary/xxxbuffyxxx for the Sceo Secret Sanata 2020. The second chapter will be up soon. I hope you like it!

Cold air pierced his lungs as he stumbled into the frost-crusted thicket. Sharp twigs scraped his face and neck as he pushed forward through the icy brush. Hot blood gushed through his fingers as he clutched his side, pain flaring through him with each agonizing stride forward.

Theo knew he was leaving a trail behind him. The heavy footprints and bright red streaks of blood would be stark against the smooth surface of newly fallen Minnesota snow. But there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He could hear the shouts of the hunters not that far behind, and the mechanical click of a shotgun. They were gaining on him fast. 

He tried to force himself to full-shift into a coyote, but the wolfsbane from the bullet buried in his side burned his blood and he quickly stopped. If he pushed himself to shift he might lose consciousness. 

He was screwed.

He should have been more careful. Should have realized that it didn’t matter how fast his reflexes were, if he hit a patch of ice driving ninety-three point nine miles an hour his truck was going to spin out. Black ice didn’t give a fuck about supernatural reflexes, and turning into a skid did jack all when you were driving that fast. He wasn’t used to driving in true winter weather and he’d been arrogant. 

At least he’d managed to draw the hunters attention away from the pack.

_* * *_

They had only been in the small town for a few hours before realizing that something was very, _very_ wrong. There was an eerie stillness on the cold empty streets. A sound too empty even for a town in the middle of nowhere. The pack that they had traveled to meet hadn’t answered any of Scott’s calls after they arrived. Both numbers he tried went directly to voicemail. 

It took them longer than it should have to realize that the pack was already dead and that the entire town had been radicalized by Monroe’s people. They’d barely escaped the ambush in the town’s square and narrowly managed to hide in an old wooden church nearby to regroup.

Knowing it would be only minutes before their location was discovered and molotov cocktails were hurled in through the stained glass windows, Theo offered the only plan that made any sense: He would slip out of the church and draw the hunters attention. He’d let them chase him to his truck and onto the highway. The rest of the pack would slip back to their own vehicles and leave town going the opposite direction.

“Can you outrun them, though?” Scott had asked him, jaw set and brow deeply furrowed.

The True Alpha’s pulse had been steady but his tone was urgent. The rest of the pack might have been convinced by the effort Scott made to conceal his worry but Theo could see the well-masked flickers of desperation in his eyes. Scott knew just as well as Theo did how bad the situation was. 

One wrong move and they would _all_ be dead. Scott would be left standing over the bodies of people he’d promised that he would always find a way to protect.

Thankfully, Theo wasn’t one of those people. He wasn’t there because Scott had promised him something or owed him anything. The fact that Scott was hesitant to allow him to become the distraction at all made Theo’s heart thud embarrassingly hopeful in his chest.

He hated how his pulse betrayed him every time Scott looked at him like that. Like he _mattered_. He knew that it didn’t make him special — Scott looked at everyone like they mattered. Even people that had double-crossed him and once left him for dead. But it was still significant to Theo.

Because _no one_ looked at him that way.

He dreaded the day that one of the pack would finally take notice of the spike in his heart rate each time Scott’s eyes fell on him. He hardly understood the feeling itself, and the last thing on earth he wanted was to have someone confront him about it.

He was reasonably certain that Scott had noticed it once. About a week and a half ago on a late night stake out in a Kansas parking lot. Theo had moved to check the front of the store on his own when Scott’s hand had closed firmly on his elbow and he was told to be careful.

He was good at concealing most of his physical responses, but the lack of warning and the close proximity had exposed him. Scott had felt the surge of fear that moved through him as he was touched unexpectedly, and how quickly it melted away when he realized _who_ it was touching him and why.

He couldn’t help either reaction. He felt the phantom hands of the Doctors or the ghostly touch of his sister every time his skin came into contact with another living being. Most of the time it hardly mattered — people rarely touched him for any reason other than to hurt him so the defensive response was most of the time pretty appropriate. His face had become intimately acquainted with nearly every supernatural fist Beacon Hills had to offer, and he couldn’t really say he _didn’t_ deserve it.

But Scott... _Scott_ had never given Theo what he deserved. He’d never laid his hands on him violently. Never once touched him with the intention of causing him harm. 

There was only protectiveness in Scott’s touch. Concern.

In that moment Theo’d read it as concern for him, and the fact that he’d done so had been written all over his face. His heart slammed uncontrollably in his chest. There was _no way_ Scott could have missed the rapidly shifting fear to...whatever it was.

Scott had quickly let go and stuffed his hand back into his jacket pocket. He’d been kind enough not to say anything about it or to bring it up later, and for that Theo had been incredibly grateful.

Scott’s concern had been for the mission, not for him. His protectiveness was for the cause. It was embarrassing that he’d thought otherwise, and even _more_ embarrassing how desperately he’d wanted it to be true.

If Scott noticed the rise in Theo’s pulse again in the church that morning, he made no sign of it. Maybe he truly _hadn’t_ noticed that time, with the erratic pounding of the pack’s hearts all around them. Theo wanted to believe that was the case, and allowed himself to do so.

So he matched Scott’s bravado with his own. Flashed him a cocky smirk and assured him that he’d managed to give much smarter people the slip. Scott had let out an amused scoff before agreeing. 

Theo wasn’t sure if Scott believed him, or if he was just too desperate to save the rest to try to look for a lie. Regardless, the plan had worked. Right up until the patch of black ice.

He’d drawn them out onto the highway and away from the town. He lost his driver’s side mirror to a spray of bullets in the process, but both he and his truck had suffered worse in the past. The flashing blue and red lights of the local police cars fell farther and farther behind him as he’d sped along the highway and accepted an incoming call from Scott.

“Did you guys make it out?” Theo answered with the immediate question.

“Yes,” Scott’s voice crackled on the phone speaker, “We’re going to group up in Winnipeg. They still on you?”

“Just barely,” Theo glanced in the rear view mirror at the half dozen cars still in sight. “I’m gonna get off at the next exit and see if I can shake them that wa—”

But he never finished his sentence. His phone soared out of his hands and across the dashboard. His truck spun out, toppling end over end. Or at least, that’s what Theo assumed happened because everything went black almost instantly. When he came to he was upside down, strapped in place by his seatbelt and bleeding all over the demolished cab of his truck.

It took him minutes to realize that the ringing sound in his ears wasn’t his eardrums but the rapidly approaching sirens of his pursuers. His bones hadn’t even finished healing when he shattered them further breaking out of the half crushed vehicle and crawling towards the distant treeline.

By the time he was able to get up on his feet gunfire erupted behind him. He made it to the trees, but the thin trunks were spread out and not nearly dense enough to provide the cover he desperately needed.

Still, he hadn’t given up hope. That was until a bullet finally landed in him and he felt the burn of wolfsbane. Then he knew it was only a matter of time before they caught him.

_* * *_

_Crack._

The shotgun blast echoed all around him, shaking snow from tree branches. The bullet just missed him but shrattenel cut into his calf. A second shot and pain exploded in his knee. A cry left his lips as his face bit snow and ice.

He had to get up, but he couldn’t.

_Click._

Bare palms flat and trembling on the frozen ground, Theo pushed himself onto his hands and knees. As he lifted his head, he was looking up the twin barrels of a shotgun. He swallowed, and slowly raised his eyes to meet the stare of the man standing above him. 

“Please…” he plead, searching the hunter’s eyes for a sign of weakness — a flicker of doubt or hesitation, any small sign of sympathy — but there was none. This man wasn’t looking at another person, he was staring down a monster.

“Where are the others?” The man demanded, as another man and two women wearing police jackets caught up with them. “Where’s the rest of your _pack_?”

Theo’s vision was blurring. He could hardly focus on the man’s eyes and the two barrels of the shot gun were starting to look more like four or six.

“Don’t have a pack.”

It came out more raw and broken than he’d wanted it to. He’d been aiming for smug and flippant — more or less the equivalent to _eat me_ — but had fallen far from the mark. The words that left his mouth were needy and pathetic sounding.

Like he was about to break into tears and tell the stranger that was about to murder him how no one wanted him. How no one had _ever_ wanted him if he couldn’t be useful to them. That he’d lived a lot longer than he probably deserved but he was still scared to die. 

He made one final effort to dodge the shot, lurching to the side as the man pulled the trigger. The brunt of the blast caught his shoulder and his face hit the ice again. This time he knew he wouldn’t be able to get back up.

The hunter and the trees were nothing more than a blur on the white landscape in front of him. The sounds of voices and snow crunching under boots all around him muffled in his ears to incomprehensible booms and muttering.

He thought he heard a roar as his mind started to shut down. As everything started to bleed from white to black it almost sounded like it was Scott.

He knew that it wasn’t, but as the wolfsbane burned in his veins and his blood poured out into the snow he allowed himself to pretend that it was. Pretend that he wasn’t dying broken and alone, like a gunned down animal.

The next thing Theo knew he was being carried.

Not one arm around the neck ‘carried off the football field’ kind of carried, but one arm hooked under his knees the other around his back kind of carried. His head was leaning against something solid and warm, a familiar scent akin to sawdust and cinnamon filled his senses.

“Hang on,” an equally-familiar voice whispered in his ear, “I’ve got you.”

“Scott?” he murmured, unsure if what he was feeling was real or just the last whimsical hallucinations of his mind as his life left his body. “Is...how...”

It couldn’t be real.

No one had ever saved him from anything. Ever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got a little longer than expected but its flowing which is great! There will be one more chapter and...I bumped up the rating lol.

When Theo woke, it was to a searing pain in his shoulder.

“ _Stay down_.”

The command of his alpha and a firm hand on his chest kept him from lurching up off the bed as it felt like all the blood in his veins had suddenly turned to fire.

“Hold still.”

It took him several moments to remember that he didn’t really _have_ an alpha, and several more to recognize that it was Scott’s palm spread across his bare chest. His red eyes glowing in the dim light of a motel room that Theo had no memory of entering.

He had to actively fight to keep the whine building in his throat from breaking free as thick black ribbons of pain made their way up Scott’s arm and he felt the first cool ripples of relief start to pulse through his chest.

He had so many questions — like where they were and how Scott had gotten to him so fast — but in the moment all he could do was stare and obey the command, staying still as he could as Scott drew away no small part of his agony.

“Just one more,” Scott whispered encouragingly as he ceased drawing and reached for a pinch of burned ashes on the bedside table. “Okay?”

Theo was intimately aware of the fact that Scott’s other hand was still laying flat on his bare chest. Holding him down firmly.

_Fuck..._

He bit his lip and tilted his head back, thankful that the burning on his cheekbones could be easily dismissed as struggling through pain. Scott pushed the last of the wolfsbane cure into the wound in his side and for a few brief moments he was able to focus on something other than the comforting press of Scott’s palm on his skin.

If it were _anyone_ else touching him there, their hand just over his heart, Theo’d either be fighting the urge to claw their arm off or shutting down in complete surrender. It was always a toss up as to which it would be. 

A hunter had once pinned him down like that and lost an arm because of it. Another time Liam had shoved him against a wall during an argument and triggered a full on flashback. Liam’s features had melded into those of his sister and Theo froze in place. Paralyzed with fear and guilt, the words _you don’t have to stop_ slipping from his lips. Liam had released him in confusion, and Theo’d quickly fled. Taking refuge in the first private place he could find, he’d sank to the ground, shaking and hyperventilating for minutes.

But it wasn’t like that when Scott touched him. Even though the Surgeon had once held Theo down on the operating table in exactly the same way Scott was pressing him down into the motel bed, and even though his body was gripped with pain, Scott’s touch was too distinct to confuse it with anything else. It was both firm and gentle. Strong but not not forceful. There was a warm and calming energy in it, even when the alpha was just grabbing his arm to get his attention.

It made him feel...safe.

“You okay?”

The pain was starting to fade as the wounds began slowly sewing themselves shut. Scott was no longer holding him down but his hand was still resting gently on Theo’s heaving chest. 

This was the most Scott had ever touched him, and now that Theo knew what it felt like he craved to feel that absolving energy sliding over every inch of his skin. 

There wasn’t a place on his body that he didn’t desire Scott’s touch, which was incredible because he could barely tolerate so much as _rubbing shoulders_ with anyone else.

“Yeah,” Theo, his voice dry and cracked, forced himself to answer Scott’s question, “I’m alright.”

He wasn’t, but it was the only answer that he was capable of giving.

He met Scott’s eyes again, praying that the flushed color of his skin and heavy thudding of his heart could still be read exclusively as his body recovering from the wolfsbane. But when he saw the concerned look in Scott’s brown eyes, bringing his heart rate down was even more difficult.

It was weird and fucked up, but there was some part of Theo that desperately wished he _could_ have a flashback in front of Scott like he’d had so many times alone. He couldn’t really understand why, but he just...wanted Scott to see him like that. 

He had never talked to anyone about what happened to him beneath the ground, nor had he ever talked about the things the Doctors had done to him in his years away from Beacon Hills. No one had ever asked and he didn’t think he _could_ talk about them if he tried. But the flashbacks and night terrors forced many things he couldn’t talk about to the surface.

He wanted to be that open, that _vulnerable,_ with someone that made him feel this safe.

“Good,” Scott whispered, relief flooding his eyes as his hand slowly withdrew from Theo’s chest. “You had me worried there for a while.”

Theo did his best not to show how sorry he was to feel Scott’s hand slip away, or how much his heart was fluttering at Scott’s admission of being _worried_ about him.

“How did you get there so fast?” Theo asked, flinching as he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

“I didn’t exactly follow the plan,” Scott admitted, “I saw the others onto the highway and doubled back for you.”

“When you called and said we’d group up in Winnipeg...”

“I was already on my way to you,” Scott explained, “I was going to tell you that but then I heard the crash and your phone went dead.”

Theo’s brows knit in confusion.

“You were already coming back?” he asked, “Why?”

Scott raised his eyebrows, now also apparently confused.

“Theo, I couldn’t...just leave you there.”

Theo’s eyes widened.

* * *

Scott sighed as he flipped through the channels on the tiny television set in the motel room. Theo was in the shower, hopefully washing away the chills and fear that Scott had felt wrapped around him since he’d scooped him up off the icy ground.

The television was boxy, small and old fashioned. Its sound was tiny and barely audible over the rattling pipes in the walls pumping water to the shower and the snowy wind howling outside. The lights flickered on and off.

Not great.

He wasn’t sure what would happen in the cheap roadside motel if the power went out during a storm. Did that mean that the heat would go down as well? The room was already pretty chilly and there wasn’t a thermostat to dial it up.

“Hey, Theo?” he rose from the creaking mattress and knocked on the bathroom door, “I might try to hurry up. Not sure if the power’s going to last.”

“Got it.”

Scott frowned at the sound of Theo’s voice. It was just a little _too_ matter-of-fact to be authentic. By now, Scott had become quite accustomed to the flavor of Theo’s performative antics and he knew he was more rattled by the day’s events than he wanted to let on.

And if Scott were being honest with himself, _he_ was rattled too.

Theo had almost died today. They’d all almost died.

How many more times were they going to make it out, just by the skin of their teeth, before one of them bit it for real?

He knew he was the leader and he couldn’t think like that, but being the leader meant that he was the one that had led them right into that trap. Yes, everyone had agreed to go and no one else hadn’t seen the trap coming. But in the end, it was still his responsibility. They all were.

The surprised look in Theo’s eyes when he’d told him that he wouldn’t leave him wasn’t sitting right with him either. Did Theo really think he was that expendable?

There were many small things that Scott had picked up on in recent weeks that lead him to believe that was the case. Things like the fact that Theo didn’t seem to be any stronger then he had been when he was on his own, and that he didn’t heal as fast as he should. Corey and Theo were both chimeras, yet Corey healed much faster than Theo. It all seemed to add up to one thing.

Theo’s body was still behaving like an Omega.

He hadn’t opened himself up enough to accept the pack bond. Or maybe the pack hadn’t opened themselves up to him. Yes, Theo was an ally and deserved their protection as much as anyone else, but the emotional wounds of his betrayal senior year still hadn’t fully healed for many of them and that wasn’t something Scott could ask them to rush.

Scott and Theo had never really talked about everything that had happened between them, at least not openly. But Scott wasn’t blind either. He saw Theo’s apologies in his actions, felt his remorse in all that he did. Theo gave to the pack, and to Scott specifically, and asked for nothing in return.

Not friendship, not protection, not even gratitude.

But that didn’t mean that Theo hadn’t, at this point, earned some of those things. Scott wasn't sure how to tell him that his safety mattered just as much as everyone else’s did. Or that just because he couldn’t push his pack to forgive Theo sooner than they were ready, that didn’t mean that _he_ hadn’t forgiven him a long time ago.

He knew that any indication he made to the pack to show that he had accepted Theo would likely flare up the already existing animosity surrounding the chimera. It had been Scott who trusted him the most back in senior year and Stiles was still bitter about the rift that Theo’s lies had caused between them.

Scott knew his best friend well enough to be aware of the fact that any explicit move to bring Theo closer was going to cause an immediate and explosive reaction — one that they couldn’t afford to have when every day came with new life-threatening dangers. But he also knew Stiles well enough to know that he wasn’t nearly as immovable in his grudges as he liked everyone to believe he was. Stiles could eventually warm up to someone that had once sided against them, but he needed to be boiled slowly into it. Theo had hurt them much deeper than someone like Derek ever had, and it was going to take a lot more time to heal that divide. Possibly years.

The trouble was, they might not _have_ years. Days like today were becoming more and more frequent. Being a chimera meant that Theo was already at a disadvantage in combat. Being an Omega on top of that was putting him at _serious_ risk.

It was a complicated and volatile situation. One that Scott knew he needed to address sooner rather than later.

He sighed and leaned against the wall, turning his ear back towards the bathroom as the sound of rushing water stopped and was replaced by the light thud of Theo’s footsteps on the tiled floor. As he listened to the sound of Theo towel-drying his hair he had to actively remind himself not to imagine how the droplets of water were likely slipping down the back of his neck, or how the wisps of steam might be sliding over the contours of shoulders in the cold room.

That was the _other_ thing that made the situation charged and complicated. Something that had come racing to the front of his mind when he heard the screech of Theo’s tires and then dead silence over the phone that morning.

There was...a lot going on between himself and Theo in recent weeks that he had been reluctant to think about or address.

He noticed things like how Theo was slow to heal because it was important for their survival. But there were other things — like the fact that Theo somehow _always_ right where he needed him the most, or how the burden of the war weighed just the slightest bit lighter on him when Theo was in the room — had managed to creep up on him. 

For months he’d allowed himself to focus only on the threat that Monroe posed to his pack and other innocent supernaturals across the country. His brief romance with Malia — if it could even be called that — had ended quickly after it began. He cared for her, and her for him, but Scott quickly realized it wasn’t what he’d felt with Allison or Kira. It was only an easy escape for both of them. Scott knew they both deserved better so he’d ended it. 

He’d told himself it was better that way. Every moment he wasn’t focused on saving others was a moment he felt guilty for. Monroe had come from his town, and claimed that all she did was because of his failure to protect her. It was hard not to dwell on it at night. Alone in his motel rooms, with no one to keep him company, Scott’s tired mind often wondered if there was anything he could have done that would have prevented all of it.

But ever since his trip to Kansas with Theo a few weeks ago, he’d found his mind wandering elsewhere as he slipped into sleep.

The image of Theo’s face when he’d gripped his arm, was now burned into his mind. The rapid shift from fear to longing, then quickly buried under shame. It was unmistakable. Theo had been caught off guard by Scott suddenly touching him like that, but it was nothing compared to how off guard Scott had been for his response.

He’d played it off casually that night, but the experience had sent his mind reeling. A thousand interactions he’d had with Theo in the past months replayed before his eyes, all in an entirely new light. The way Theo had looked to him after every mission, eyes seeking his. Those feelings of ease that he’d felt so many times when he knew Theo was nearby.

He’d watched Theo more closely after that, and saw that it hadn’t been a simple one-off fluke. It was subtle, but there was a small spike in Theo’s heart rate _every_ time Scott looked at him or called his name. 

It wasn’t just flattering, it was _exciting_. Scott felt guilty for how he had started to look forward to hearing that thudding in Theo’s chest. He couldn’t allow himself to explore the feeling further than that, but when he was slipping to sleep at night — alone in his motel rooms once again — he found his tired mind replaying those moments and indulging in the fantasy of exploring their meaning further.

It had escalated again only two days ago. He’d been chasing a short moment of release in the shower when he suddenly found his imagination conjuring up the images of such an exploration in _explicit_ detail. It hadn’t been the first time he’d thought about Theo like that, but it certainly had been the most he’d allowed himself to do so in the heated rush of hot water. His release had come almost as fast and furiously as the guilt that followed it.

He’d stood with one hand propped against the tiled wall, panting in the hot spray of water for minutes afterwards. Kicking himself for letting himself fall into a fantasy of Theo, raspy voice panting his name over and over again, pressed against the tailgate of his truck.

So yes, things were... _very_ complicated.

When Theo re-entered the room he was wearing the spare pair of sweatpants Scott had leant him from the bag he kept tied to his motorcycle. However, the t-shirt he’d also given him was still folded and hanging over his bare shoulder. A second glance revealed the reason — Theo’s wounds hadn’t completely closed yet.

“Theo,” Scott said, unable to keep the concern from bleeding into his voice, “Your wound...” 

“Chimera.” Theo muttered, quickly answering Scott’s question before he could finish, “It just takes a little longer. I’ll be fine.”

He made to move past Scott towards the beds, but Scott didn’t let him. He held up his hand, blocking him. Theo stopped the second Scott’s fingertips came into contact with his bare chest. _That look_ flashing through his eyes.

“Y—yeah?” Theo asked, swallowing nervously.

Scott wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to say.

“You’re…” he started, trying to pretend he couldn’t feel the way Theo’s heart was thudding just under his fingertips, “You’re not okay.”

A faint pink tinge lit Theo’s cheekbones and he averted his gaze.

The lights flickered off and on again. They were _definitely_ going to lose power, but Scott knew he needed to push the next words out.

“You were surprised that I came back for you,” he said, finally, “Why?”

Before Theo could answer the power failed and they were plunged into darkness.

“Damn it,” Scott whispered, removing his hand and moving to the window.

Snow was crusting along its edges and the overhead lights in the parking lot seemed to be out.

“Scott, how far are we from those hunters?”

“Not as far as I’d like to be, but I don’t think they could have followed in the storm.” Scott scanned the dark lot and saw no sign of new cars or tracks. There was already a foot more snow since he arrived and he hadn’t heard the sound of an approaching engine.

A moment later there was a thudding sound of heavy boots trudging through snow along the walkway outside. Theo sucked in a quick breath, his eyes darting towards the door just as there was a heavy _knock knock knock._

“Stay back,” Scott ordered, moving between Theo and the door. 


End file.
